Copalli 1937

Diego Rivera made Copalli, an oil on canvas painting, sometime in his lifetime, and it now lives in the Brooklyn Museum. The smooth gradation of color in the sky contrasts with the rock-like tree trunks and sharp grey rocks. It's like he's building up the forms with these precise, almost architectural blocks of color. I like that the painting doesn't really sit still; its forms are caught between the real and the imagined. Take a look at the stubby branches reaching upwards. Rivera’s given them almost human qualities, like outstretched arms. He’s really playing with our sense of scale; the trees could be towering giants or small shrubs in a vast landscape. It's funny; they remind me of Philip Guston's late paintings, where everything feels both heavy and cartoonish at once. That tension between gravity and levity, seriousness and play, keeps me coming back.